Having teased it in the last episode, it’s only natural that this one would depict sports day. Imagine if the staff felt zany and opted to save it for a much later episode. As it turns out, sports day is the entire third episode of Missing Pieces so it makes sense that it wasn’t shown in Episode 2. I do find this surprising however. Horimiya paces very quickly and it often cuts to different scenarios within the same episode so it’s a bit atypical for a single event to take up a whole episode.
I said it in the last episode review, before even getting to the actual event, but I am surprised that this scenario wasn’t adapted for the original series. It doesn’t advance the plot and it doesn’t reveal anything major about anyone in the cast so I do get why it was originally cut. That said, this scenario does involved almost every character from Hori and Miyamura’s school. The only one who is absent is Mizouchi but who cares about him. I get that it’s non-essential but there’s an argument to be made that the time-constrained original series should have utilized content that covered a lot of ground as a workaround. If not for character development, sports day made varied use of the cast’s comedy. Remi messes with Hori again to secure an easy win in a race. Yanagi’s bad eyeseight makes him hilariously aggressive in kibasen. The list goes on.
While this episode is arguably not that important, it does provide a great look at Miyamura’s character. Back then, Miyamura would dread sports day but now that he has Hori and a circle of friends, he’s able to enjoy the last one in his academic career. There’s people he can cheer on and when he does participate in an activity, he gets really into it. I thought Miyamura’s arc worked perfectly fine in the original series (though I do feel it got skimmed over at times) but something like this does make me appreciate it more.
A fun detail in this episode is the team compositions. Miyamura, Ishikawa, Sakura, and Remi are part of the so-called Team West while Hori, Yoshikawa, Sengoku, and Iura are part of Team East. That allows the cast to make some funny comments about their friend or significant other being on the opposite team. For example, Miyamura cheers for Hori during her race with Remi and he gets a little embarrassed since his girlfriend is technically his opponent for the day. This setup also makes it so that it doesn’t really matter who wins in the end (though the show does share the score in case you’re curious). You can’t really root for one team over the over since the show’s main couple is split across them. All that matters is that the gang is having fun.
Watch Horimiya: The Missing Pieces on Crunchyroll and Funimation
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